


Nobody Doesn't Like Sara Lee

by brinnanza



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crimes Against Baking, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:34:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baking is just chemistry, McKay tells himself. It’s all how substances react with other substances given certain conditions, and while chemistry has never been his favorite scientific discipline, when it really comes down to it, chemistry is an awful lot like engineering, and he’s got that down pretty well. So he kicks all of the marines on KP duty out of the kitchen, locks the door, and gets to work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody Doesn't Like Sara Lee

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Português brasileiro available: [Ninguém Não Gosta de Sara Lee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7454094) by [Rosetta (Melime)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melime/pseuds/Rosetta)



> Based on a Tumblr prompt [here](http://oldmchawkeye.tumblr.com/post/109102449427/important-otp-question-which-one-tries-and-fails): Important OTP question: which one tries and fails to make a rum cake and winds up drunk and covered in flour, and which one comes home to find them in this condition?

Baking is just chemistry, McKay tells himself. It’s all how substances react with other substances given certain conditions, and while chemistry has never been his favorite scientific discipline, when it really comes down to it, chemistry is an awful lot like engineering, and he’s got that down pretty well. So he kicks all of the marines on KP duty out of the kitchen, locks the door, and gets to work.

The flour and eggs are local to Pegasus, so they’re a little different from the Earth standard, but McKay thinks they look close enough to what he remembers from his last attempt at cooking. (It’s been a while. There’s a reason he likes MREs.) There’s no brown sugar, just the regular refined stuff, but sugar is sugar, right? They do at least have real Earth butter and a variety of spices (both Earth and Pegasus), so he’s able to use actual vanilla extract. (Well, it’s imitation vanilla extract from wood barrels instead of vanilla beans, but it will taste close enough.)

And okay, yes, he will have to substitute the titular spirit because Simpson refused to give up (or even admit to having) the spiced rum he _knows_ she special ordered for the last Daedalus run (even though it’s for a _very good cause_ ), but any alcohol that isn’t fancy Canadian beer pretty much tastes the same to him, and the alcohol will cook off in the oven anyway, so using the rotgut that Zelenka brews out on the East Pier will be fine. He’ll add some extra cinnamon or something.

He preheats the oven, mentally converting from the Fahrenheit listed in the recipe to Celsius to the Ancient units the kitchen uses, and starts mixing ingredients. The flour is really fine, like volcanic beach sand, so when McKay dumps a cupful into the bowl, a cloud of it blooms up and gets up his nose. He sneezes, and that just compounds the whole flour-in-the-air problem.

He’s not exactly unaccustomed to doing science in less-than-ideal conditions, so he drags the back of one arm across his forehead to wipe off some of the flour and finishes mixing the batter. He dumps it into the pan and shoves it into the oven.

With the cake part of the rum cake more or less finished, he snags his tablet off of the counter to peer at the recipe, emailed to him by Jeannie at his request at the last databurst, scanning down for the instructions for the glaze. He notices that the cake is supposed to bake for an hour and frowns. He probably should have read through the whole thing before getting started, but patience and forethought are not exactly strong suits of his when it comes to life-threatening situations, never mind baking.

He can think of a hundred very useful things he could be doing with his time instead of waiting for a cake to bake (which is only slightly more interesting than watching paint dry; at least cake smells good), but he can’t exactly abandon the project at this point. He’d probably burn the whole city down, and wouldn't that be ironic, the city going up in flames as it floats in the middle of a damn ocean.

He heaves a sigh and grabs the mixing bowl, spoon, and measuring cups. There’s a patch of flour on the floor, apparently, because his foot slips out from under him and he ends up practically flinging the dishes into the sink. One of the measuring cups misses its mark and knocks into the open bag of flour sitting on the counter.

McKay shoves a hand at the bag to keep it upright, which releases a plume of flour into the air. It falls down slowly, like a light snow, thoroughly coating the counter, the floor, and McKay himself.

This, he thinks, is why he doesn't do chemistry.

He closes up the flour bag and grabs a towel so he can start wiping off the counters. He’s sweeping flour into the sink when the oven starts making loud, urgent beeping sounds.

McKay huffs out a breath and yanks open the oven door to check on the cake. He’s met with thick, dark smoke that makes him cough and gag and slam the oven door shut again. “What the _hell_ " he manages, waving a hand in front of his face to dissipate the smoke. He leans over to check the display through watery eyes.

He curses the entire United States and everyone who thinks it’s acceptable to measure temperature in _Fahrenheit_ because apparently he’d made an error in the initial temperature conversion and the oven is set about 200 degrees too high. he jabs a finger at the off button, swears, and crosses the kitchen to throw open a window. He holds his breath, then opens the oven door again, trusting the Atlantis’s ventilation system to blow the smoke outside.

It does, more or less, but the kitchen is still a little hazy, and the cake is a charcoal brick in the pan. _Fuck it_ , McKay thinks, and leaves it there. Then he snatches the bottle of moonshine off the counter and retreats to the other side of the kitchen, where he plops down on the floor, leaning against the wall and facing firmly away from the oven.

 

Some time later, the door slides open and Sheppard demands, “What the hell, McKay? KP’s been banging on the door for an hour and you haven’t been answering your radio.”

McKay gives him a wide grin and throws his hands wide, the liquor bottle still clutched in one hand. The liquid sloshes a little, but McKay’s drunk enough of it at this point that it’s in no danger of slopping over the edge. “Happy birthday!” McKay crows. “I made you a cake.”

Sheppard looks around, takes in the slight haze that remains of the smoke, the acrid smell of burnt food, the fine layer of flour still coating everything, and McKay slumped so low he’s practically horizontal and just _laughs_.

McKay frowns and takes another sip of moonshine. Sheppard leans down, tugs the bottle out of McKay’s hand and hauls him to his feet. McKay sways, then leans against him solidly.

Sheppard sniffs at the mouth of the bottle, makes a face, then sets it on the counter and starts dragging McKay toward the door. “Let’s get you to bed, Rodney.”

“Yeah, okay,” says McKay, throwing an arm around Sheppard’s waist for balance. They hobble out of the kitchen and head for the personnel quarters.

 

When the KP staff see the mess, they refuse to make any dessert that isn't citrus flavored for a month.


End file.
